Brent Olson

Why photography? It is a way for me to see the world better. To pay attention to it. To force myself to look again at the things I thought I had understood. And it is a chance for me to playfully see the world; to find adventure and share it. Adventure revolves around friendship, exploring the world, overcoming a degree of difficulty, and developing stories to tell.

Light, Play, Nature

Just before he died in 1996, the geographer JB Jackson wrote an essay entitled “The Places we Play.” In it, he described a particular kind of sport:

"A generation ago, in an essay entitled “Games of Dizziness and Fear,” the French psychologist Jean Caseneuve wrote: “There is a kind of game or sport which can be designated by the term helix, the Greek word for whirlwind or an evolving spiral, to which is related a word which can be translated as vertigo or the dizziness of intoxication.” How can dizziness be experienced as a sport? “By an effect both physical and psychological. The organs of balance, particu- larly in the inner ear, are momentarily disturbed by unusual movements and the result is a modification of the way we perceive our surround- ings. Our relation to the world around us takes on a strange quality, and our self-awareness undergoes change. Even in harmless cases, as on a swing or merry-go-round, there is a certain shift in perception that is part of the pleasure children get from this kind of play. The definition of helix games and sports should include all activities involving . . . loss of physical balance and all the means we use to modify our self-perception.” Caseneuve noted that in those sports the spatial dimension is not always well defined, but that the dimension of time remains precise; for only by consciously controlling the length of time we undergo this experience can we continue to maintain our freedom; the sport is still a game, still a kind of make-believe."

My photography hopes to capture that playful engagement with the world around us.